


The Whistle-Stop

by pcwife



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Naruto Fusion, As it should be, F/M, Gang AU, Low-key crack, Villain Itachi, i love making the rest of akatsuki dream of mutiny haha, uchiha is the gang leader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-15 19:09:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcwife/pseuds/pcwife
Summary: Masma is just trying to get through her life.Itachi is just trying to understand rodents.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote and posted this work years ago on ff.net under [adtoyfan](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6245732/adtoyfan), but I never got around to finishing it.
> 
> If you ever followed The Whistle-Stop there, many apologies! Writer's block is a witch.
> 
> Anyway, now that I'm writing again, I thought I'd post it here as well while I continued it on ff.net.
> 
> If it seems slightly different from the original posts, it's cos I'm different as a writer now so I couldn't help editing it as I put it up here. 
> 
> Anyway, enough talk! Enjoy!

Masma was worried. It was market day again, and the pantry was looking rather bare. She couldn't put it off any longer. She had to go.

Standing in the kitchen, basket ready, fidgeting with her shawl, she wondered how it had come to this.

She used to love market day. The noisy merchants bringing news, the cheap trinkets she could (sometimes) afford, the smell of fresh apples brought in from their sister village to the west… Now she dreaded its arrival every week.

He was to blame, that damn hooligan. Ever since he'd interfered with her perfect afternoon checking out the goods that her favorite book merchant had brought in that week, her Thursdays had become a hellish exercise in anxiety.

 **\--6 Thursdays ago-** -

There she'd been, minding her own business by the book merchant's caravan, when a cut-purse had dashed by, making off with her…well, her purse. That's what they were named for anyway. She hadn't been too concerned – it had been more than 2 months since she'd been pick pocketed. She was overdue. The crime rate this tiny village managed to support was ridiculously high. It was also the reason why she had an "outside purse" and a real one. She kept her outside purse half- filled with Iron bits, the smallest unit of currency there was. Sometimes she used it to occasionally pay for the random snack (she loved street food - dysentery be damned), but it was mostly for distracting the street-urchins from her real purse. Any halfway-sensible villager here did the same.

So, there went her outside purse, and after a moment of watching, she returned her attention to the book she was holding. Until she heard the distinct sound of a scuffle coming from the alley she'd seen the thief run into. Like any local villager, she took that as her signal to exit stage left. Maybe head towards that potato stand on the other side of the village square.

Putting down her book wistfully, she turned to leave and came to an abrupt halt.

For some reason, this section of the market had been completely emptied. There was the stall she'd just bought apples from – unmanned, tent cloth flapping in the wind. She took a quick look around the narrow corridor that the walls of merchant's caravans formed. She immediately understood why everyone had scattered. There, in the dark shade formed by a caravan parked up against the town clock, stood a group of young men. A more careful glance around revealed more guys milling about this section of market in similar groups of two's and three's.

Damn

How had she not noticed this? No wonder everyone had left. Lost in reading the book's introduction, she'd completely missed the arrival of the local criminal overlord's gang.

The gang had moved into the area 6 months ago, terrorized the Night Watch and picked off the majority of the criminal vermin that populated this village's seedy underbelly. After a few months of understated violence among the village’s ‘underground’ and general public anxiety, the gang had mysteriously quieted down. Now, apart from collecting protection money – which they tried to fancily call “tribute” – from the local gangs and disciplining the occasional rogue, they seemed to do nothing at all. Of course, except appear in public places to spread panic and terror. Like they were doing right now.

Masma consoled herself that at least it was just the henchmen making this public appearance, and their leader was absent as usu-

Never mind.

Masma sighed inwardly at her luck as the Hooligan himself stepped out from behind the alley she'd heard the sounds of fighting come from. Behind him, one of his minions hauled the struggling cut-purse.

Ah. She was probably going to have to witness his beheading or something, now. Lovely.

The Hooligan was tall, imposing, with his hair long and held back in a loose ponytail. The wide expanse of the black robes he and his gang wore didn't give room for much else in the way of description, but one got the distinct impression that he was fit. Suddenly, he turned and headed down her way, facial expression speaking of extreme levels of boredom. The lines running from his eyes down to the corners of this mouth gave the vague impression of a scowl, which only augmented his bored look. His eyes though, told a totally different story. They were intense. So intense that their blackness seemed to be an even blacker black than the usual kind to Masma.

Wait, his eyes?

Damn it, she definitely wasn't imagining it. This hooligan was staring directly at her! While before she had hoped he would dismiss her presence and carry on with this public execution - or whatever he was going to do to that thief - now she began to get slightly worried.  
They drew closer, accompanied by the ripe smell of the thief's unwashed body. She was frankly surprised that she only had to suffer one person’s stench (many of the slimy small-time criminals around here had the uncanny ability to smell like several dirty people at once). Apparently, Hooligan and his crew took personal hygiene seriously. Wonders never cease.

Suddenly, henchman no. 1, who she was having trouble even pinning down as a man with all that long blonde hair, made a violent movement in her direction. She flinched, but he was just tossing the thief at her. He lay in a crumpled pile at her feet, groaning.

A deathly quiet voice spoke.

"What do you say?"

Looking up from the thief, she looked at henchman no.1, but he hadn't spoken. That only left his boss. She gulped and peeked up at him from her lowered head. He was staring intently at the thief.

"S- S- Sorry!"

Smelly Thief's voice was thin and reedy, and it was hard to make out what he was saying with his teeth chattering like that, but she got the gist of it. He reached up toward her, his grubby fist clutching her now-stained purse. She didn't want to take it. Goodness only knew where his hands had been. Also, what the hell was this? Why was the Hoolingan Overlord making this man return her outside purse?

Confused she glanced at him. He stared intensely back. She understood the message.

Take the purse or I will string your corpse from the village gates using your entrails.

Gulping, she took the purse, holding it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. Overlord blinked.

Approval?

"Maa, Itachi. Are we done here? I got shit to do, un!" Hooligan no. 1 spoke.

He directed his intense stare at blondie, who seemed completely unfazed, then turned - without so much as a word to her - and left.

**-NOW-**

Gathering up her wits, she picked up her basket and headed towards the door. Worrying, waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering if he would show up again expecting some sort of reward - or show up for any reason whatsoever – was useless. He hadn't shown up for 6 weeks. What were the chances he'd show up now? She was probably safe

She sailed out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that you might be waiting for me to outright say that the Overlord is Itachi and start to involve him in the story telling but don't worry, that's coming up soon!

It had now officially been 1 hour of shopping and nothing horrible had happened. Her wicker shopping basket was two-thirds full, and she was eyeing a rather appealing-looking bunch of grapes.

Standing here in the shade of the fruit stand, feeling up grapes and surrounded by the sweet citrus-y smell of fresh oranges, Masma felt slightly silly for the overblown worrying session that she'd had in her kitchen. After all, there was a reason that she'd been surprised to see the Hooligan Overlord at the market – it wasn't exactly a gang 'scene', was it? Why would the average good-for-nothing be interested in deliciously fresh farm produce? That bunch probably ate meat every day, and for every meal. Also, goodness knows none of them cooked, or anything. They'd probably been coercing a nearby farmer's poor wife into tending to their culinary needs.   
Their appearance 6 weeks ago had been a freak, once-in-a –lifetime incident. In the wake of this brilliant epiphany, Masma closed her eyes in relief, enjoying the cool shade of the fruit stand and feeling the tension she'd been harboring in her shoulders all morning melting away. Yes, that had definitely been a one-time-only fluke –

"Ma'am, are you buying or not?"

Her eyes snapped open in total confusion. The feeling was closely followed by the beginnings of a feminine outrage. She glared at the fruit-seller in disbelief. She’d been giving him her business for years. Had he just…had he just hurried her along? Sim knew that fruit-choosing was a delicate process. He never ever hurried anyone up, yet here he was, rushing one of his oldest customers. More importantly, had he just called her ma'am? Ma'am? MA'AM? Was he implying that she did, in fact, look like a 50-year-old spinster?

However, before her thoughts could escalate to an intensity that mere caps lock would be hard-pressed to express, she was distracted by the fact that her soon to be ex-fruit seller wasn't even bothering to look her in the eye as he insulted her patron(age).   
His gaze was flickering between his busy hands, which were inexplicably packing up his stand, and something farther down the street. It was barely noon. Why would he be packing up already? As a matter of fact, now that her eyes were open and she wasn't seeing through a red haze (well, she still was, but it was slowly fading) she noticed that a lot of the merchants were packing up their wares in a way that couldn't seem to decide if it was frantic or surreptitious. And they were all doing it with one eye fixed on something further down the street.

Masma felt a cold pit settle in her gut.

She closed her eyes and heartily wished that the local inn had caught fire, and that that was what had everyone's attention. Yes, of course. Merchants would want to pack up and move their highly flammable wooden wagons away from a fire, right? That was most definitely it.

She slowly opened her eyes, laid the bunch of grapes down and turned to stare at the fire too.

Sadly, it was not Mr. Sauther's livelihood going up in flames that everyone was staring at.

Instead, it was exactly what she had first suspected.

Overlord was making his leisurely way down the street.

Masma took a quick glance at the dark shadowy bit of wall that was always formed by tents pitching up around the town clock. It should have revealed the rest of his posse melting into existence was. It did not. Glances at the rest of the shadowy nooks and crannies that should have been prime candidates for making a stealthy appearance were likewise fruitless.

Huh.

Would you look at that?

The ~~Baka~~ Great-and-Fearsome Overlord was operating…alone?

Well, it's not that she didn't think that he couldn't spread terror and mayhem on his own – according to rumors from 3 towns over, he had completely crushed the entire Night's watch. Unarmed, mind you. Simply because they'd had the audacity to walk around with bright lanterns when he was suffering a hangover from his morning drinking binge (who had morning drinking binges, anyway?).

But she'd sort of begun to imagine that the rest of his crew was something akin to his security blanket, and that he was theirs as well. It was an amusing thought, to imagine that these big, bad criminals had some sort of weak co-dependent relationship going on.

Masma smirked slightly, then let that smirk fade when she realized that, once again, Baka Overlord Ita-whatever was staring right at her. He'd even crossed the street to the side that she was on. He had a very determined set to his shoulders that spelled definite trouble. A quick glance to her right told her that Sim, having packed his cart up and locked it, had melted away.

The rat bastard.

Looking back at Ita-something (she could remember his name if she really tried, but she preferred not to), she groaned and tried to mentally prepare for whatever fresh hell she had in store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tae_shookie) and [tumblr](http://mrswangyeol.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We'll get a taste of Itachi's POV with this entry!  
> Go ahead and comment - let me know what you guys think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tae_shookie) and [tumblr](http://mrswangyeol.tumblr.com/)

Itachi was fuming.

He'd left that poor excuse for scum very clear instructions to inform him as soon as the girl made an appearance at the market. Instead, the cremlin had only just let him know – citing poor excuses for his lateness.

Apparently Itachi was "too well guarded" and it had been "difficult to get past his gang members" to access him. A likely story.

Itachi knew what to do with likely stories.

Maybe the man would be a little more careful about what kind of stories he spun once his tongue had healed.

He could hardly believe that he had been reduced to relying on the second-hand reports of a slimy cut-purse anyway. But he reminded himself that he had no choice. According to Deidara, he had communicated entirely the wrong message when he'd last had an interaction with the lady.

He had found this hard to imagine, as he had defended her honor as well as her property by catching the slime streak that had robbed her (without a gang-issued license for his activities, by the by). However, apparently, the manner in which he had conducted himself had been declared "shifty at best" and his eyes had communicated "something about hangings and entrails".

As tempted as he was to disagree with Deidara's assessment - after all he didn't consider the blonde a good judge of atmosphere, or social cues, or anything really - the man did seem to have a greater understanding of women than he did. The entrance to his private quarters was like a revolving door, and Itachi would wager good money that he had deflowered every farmer's daughter that was of age in a 10 mile radius of their base.

Her failure to reappear on the next market day had only reinforced his suspicions that she had misunderstood his gestures.

Therefore, to avoid spooking her, he had elected to have a lookout keep an eye out for her so that he could ambu- err...approach her once she'd gotten up the nerve to attend market day again. Having her not hear any mention of his lurking around was bound to bring her out in a week, tops.

Right?

Wrong. It had taken 6.

But she was here at last. He could actually feel the ghost of an emotion as he strode through the crowd in the direction she'd been seen in last (it would actually be more accurate to say that he strode past the crowd, since it parted neatly into two ahead of him). This emotion seemed familiar. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything properly, though, and it was hard to place. His pace slowed down as he thought about it. It reminded him of his childhood…of bullying his bratty little brother…

Ah.

Of course.

This was what the peasantry referred to as excitement, right?

Marveling at the fact that he could actually feel faint whispers of an emotion other than "smirking" – Deidara claimed that it was not mirth that he experienced at those times, but a sort of sadistic thrill that could only be described as "smirking" – he sped back up and turned a corner.

Aha.

There she was.

He watched her take a deep breath and close her eyes. The lines of her shoulders softened as if a large burden had just been lifted off of them. The curve of her neck was doing strange things to his stomach. It seemed to be making a feeble attempt at…jumping? That was two alien feelings now. His determination to explore this reaction to her was growing.

He began making his way down the street, keeping his eyes on her.

He caught her reaction to something said by the fruit vendor whose cart she was standing at. Her eyes snapped open, jolting her out of whatever reverie she'd been caught up in. She seemed surprised at first, but he watched her grow slowly indignant, then angry. The fire in her eyes replicated that strange feeling in his abdomen. It was…vaguely pleasant. All the same…

His eyes flickered to the vendor.

He would pay for her displeasure.

Then, he saw her start to look around, noticing the weaklings scurry this way and that to avoid him. Damn. He hadn't wanted her to notice his presence right away.

That fruit vendor would pay double for this.

Again, she closed her eyes. The tiny furrow in her brow gave the impression that she was wishing very hard for something. She seemed to spend a lot of time with her eyes closed, he mused.

When she opened them this time, she turned to look down the street, directly into his eyes.

As if by some sort of magical pull, he crossed the street to her side and quickened his pace before he even realized what he was doing.

However, as he got closer he was forced to admit once and for all that Deidara had been right in this matter. Once the flicker of surprise passed, it was plain to see that her eyes were filled with dread at his appearance.

He didn't know what she thought of him, exactly, but while fear and more fear was the reaction that he strove for with most people, he definitely did not want that to be hers. He would definitely be rectifying this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tae_shookie) and [tumblr](http://mrswangyeol.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Masma finally interact...more or less

**Masma**

Overlord whats-his-face came to a stop a few feet ahead of her. His eyes still held that dark, determined fire she'd grown accustomed to seeing in them.

Masma took a few seconds to bemoan the fact that she'd had the opportunity to become accustomed to anything about a criminal. Anything about this particular criminal, especially.

When those seconds stretched into almost a minute, she began to wonder why he wasn't making any moves to disrupt her train of thought. Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, as he immediately stirred into action. His lips parted, as if he were about to speak.

Then they stayed that way.

The silence stretched on.

Unable to bear the suspense, and probably driven more that a bit insane by 6 weeks of worrying - and then having her worries come to life - Masma began, "Um…"

Then she realized what she was doing. She nearly clapped her hands onto her mouth, shocked that she'd had the gall to try to speak before spoken to. But, deciding at the last minute to give the impression that she knew what she was doing, she clenched her fists and powered through the urge. In for an iron bit, in for a copper, she told herself. Then she continued,

"Can…I help you?"

Blast! That came out wrong!

'Um…can I help you?' Really? She didn't think that she could have managed to make that come out more sarcastic if she'd tried. She sounded like Mr. Sauther's moody teenage daughter when she was left manning the counter. If you didn't immediately tell her what you wanted she would treat you to a mix of condescension and sarcasm of a quality that only an adolescent could muster. Many a time she had left his inn full of the gnawing need to prove that she was not a slack-jawed dullard.

She screwed her eyes shut and cringed as she waited for retribution. Perhaps he would make it quick and painless.

**Itachi POV**

The lady was making a truly astounding face at him.

With her head moved that far back and her face all scrunched up like that, she looked remarkably like…a pug.

To his further amazement, he began to feel the urge to…smile. Perhaps even chuckle. He managed to keep a straight face, however. It wouldn't do to have the rodents see him as even remotely human. To reinforce this, he cast a glare at a scurrying townsperson and was satisfied to see the man nearly piss himself. Turning back to the lady, he tried to make sense of whatever she was doing to her face. It took him a few beats but he figured it out. She was in some sort of…prolonged flinch.

Ah. So that was it.

He then deduced that she was having a reaction of gut-wrenching fear from talking out of turn. This was common among the rode- err…townspeople. Fear drove them slightly out of their minds and made them do something reckless – perhaps look him in the eye, or speak when they have not been spoken to – and when they regained their senses, they were frozen with the realization of what they'd done.

He thought back to what he usually did in these situations to ease the reaction. He then belatedly realized that he was being foolish. Why on earth would he ever have eased the mind of a rodent that had dared to look him in the eye? There could have been no precedent for this situation.

Very well then, he decided. He would just do the opposite of what he usually did to amplify their fear. That would probably work…right?

Let's see, he mused. What techniques did he usually use…?

Ah, ok, here was one - he would ignore them and let them wet themselves imagining that it was because they were as good as dead anyway, and therefore as worthy of his attention as a rotting corpse…making the alternative to not ignore her? He was already doing that, to no effect. He dismissed that plan.

Hmm…well, last week he'd made one faint by looking directly at him – though to be fair, Deidara had said that he was glaring, even though he'd only meant to glance…at….him…

Itachi had an epiphany.

Oh dear.

This is what Deidara had meant when he said that she had the wrong impression of him. All the time that he'd spent looking at her - had she actually thought that he was glaring the whole time? He went through a quick recap of the events in the market 6 weeks ago and added in this new angle. Oh wow. If he'd done all that sidling out of an alley and manhandling of another man all while glaring at her, of course she'd panicked.

He felt a sinking feeling in his gut. Now, here she was, convinced that he was going to cut her down for unsolicited speaking. How was he ever going to have any kind of normal interaction with her?

Attempts to soften his expression while her eyes were closed were fruitless. Mainly because he had no mirror with which to see what changes he had wrought, but also partly because his face had a pretty limited number of default expressions: bored, mildly upset and Grim Reaper (naming courtesy of Deidara).

**Masma POV**

The arrival of what she was hoping to be a quick and relatively painless demise now seemed to be dragging out, much like this entire interaction. After dithering about whether now that she had closed her eyes, it would be impertinent to open them without his leave and relax her pose a little bit, she remembered that he was going to kill her anyway and took a peek.

Several of what she could only assume were spasms seemed to be running across Overlord's face. His mouth seemed to be twitching in what on the surface appeared to be a horrible approximation of a smile, but given his general …self...was most likely a grimace of bloodthirsty rage, Masma concluded.

Well, if he was going to take his time, she mused, perhaps she should run?

She should put up some sort of struggle, try making this difficult; and she should do it now while he was in the midst of his…paroxysms. Before he noticed that she was no longer frozen in fear.

She glanced furtively around at her avenues of escape as much as she could without moving her head. Her best bet was probably to start off by back-pedaling frantically – to keep an eye on any incoming attacks - before turning around and going into a full-out sprint. Clumsy as she was, backwards would not have been her first choice for direction of retreat, but at least now she wouldn't have to worry about bumping into anyone since they had all abandoned her (Sim, that slimy rat!).

A quick count of 3 and she was off! One, two, three steps…she could now turn around-!

…..and run directly into his chest.

He was behind her now, somehow.

**Itachi POV**

Alerted by the sudden return of her motor skills by her pathetic attempt at escape, Itachi was now blocking her route. He was slowly realizing that there was no need to reinvent the wheel (or any facial expressions) in this scenario. He would act like himself, not like one of the weak rodents that passed for men in this village.

He was an excellent person, of this he had no doubt. Her current opinion of him was no more than a misunderstanding. If she spent more time with him, doubtless she would get over it, and they could have a normal discussion. He would discover what his fascination with her was, exhaust it, and release her back into the wild…or whatever. Mind made up, he proceeded with alacrity to pinch a cluster of nerves at the base of her neck to knock her out then sling her up onto his shoulder, using his other hand to pick up her basket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a line: [twitter](https://twitter.com/tae_shookie), [tumblr](http://mrswangyeol.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/pcwifey) and [tumblr](http://mrswangyeol.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
